


touch

by vice (zzzubat)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, don't hold me responsible for this, i just wanted fluff y'all idk, if anyone asks you don't know me and this doesn't exist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-05-01 08:16:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14516184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zzzubat/pseuds/vice
Summary: Beau fucks up one (1) time and suddenly she's drowning in all this affection she doesn't know what to do with and Jester isn't making it any better.Beau's a gay mess, Jester is very touchy-feely, and Mollymauk cannot stop laughing.





	touch

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back from the dead with more content this made my teeth ache. as usual, any mistakes are mine bc i don't have a beta

It started with a particularly vicious blow in-battle that left Beau dizzy for what she said were at least five hours. In that time frame she had managed to: cut off the already-barely-there sleeves of her shirt, do a musical number with Molly on the topic of how much they “hated” each other, and terrify Caleb by putting her arm around his shoulder and calling him “my dude.”

All of this, though, wasn't necessarily because she was disoriented. They all sounded like things she'd do at any point in time. What she blamed on the blow was far greater a mistake in her mind.

She returned to her room after exchanging hate comments with Molly to the sight of Jester sitting cross-legged on her bed frowning at a box of donuts. Beau watched her as a considerable amount of the sprinkles fell onto the bed and the floor as she mindlessly chewed on one.

Jester not noticing her immediately was strange but Beau thought nothing of it. The dull pain at the side of her head didn't aid her brain activity. She rapped her knuckles on the door frame and Jester’s head immediately swiveled her way in a concerningly accurate owl impression. Jester grinned through the last bits of the donut and bounced in her spot.

“You're back,” she said, voice only somewhat comprehensible. “Do you want one?”

Jester shoved the box of donuts Beau’s way a bit aggressively. “They're really good,” she added as an afterthought.

Beau only reached inside the box because the look Jester was giving her was pleading and left her completely defenseless to the tiefling’s charm. A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth as Jester’s eyes sparkled.

“What are you doing up here, anyway?” she asked. “The others are still celebrating downstairs.”

The donut Beau picked up was covered in shockingly blue icing that got on her fingers the moment she touched it. It was so sweet she felt her teeth tingle.

“I wanted to talk to the Traveler. And draw how Fjord punched that wall.”

Beau glanced at Jester’s sketchbook. The cartoonish version of Fjord was making an expression only describable by the words “ow, why did I do that?”

“Good. Everyone should know he fractured his hand like this.”

The stronger they got, the dumbest their injuries became, it seemed. At least Fjord could say his hand was fine now. Beau wasn't that much of an asshole but she had laughed a lot as Jester was healing him. It was only fair that he had cackled when she got swatted right in the head after that.

“Ow.”

Her skull throbbed and Beau almost choked on the first bite from the donut. Her hand went up to press against the pain on impulse and consequently made it even worse.

“Ow! Why'd I do that?”

Jester frowned and jumped up. Before she could open her mouth Beau lifted her hand. She returned the donut to the box. “‘M fine.”

“I'm sorry,” Jester said as she moved to the side to allow Beau to sit down on the bed. “I didn't have any spells left and I know you said you didn't want a healing potion, but maybe you should take one anyway I mean they're not that expensive and I have some-”

“Jester, I'm fine,” she said. “I've taken worse when I was twelve, I can handle it.”

Beau focused on the floorboards and the pain began to subside. She stretched her back and neck and attempted to smile, though with her track record it came off as a grimace.

“See? It's all good.”

“If you're sure,” Jester said. Her frown disappeared and she leaned closer. “Hey, I know! Do you want me to sing you a lullaby? That could help.”

“That's… Very sweet, Jester. But I think noise makes it worse. And we should probably sleep.”

Jester deflated a bit but grinned nonetheless. “Okay! And tomorrow I will heal you first thing! I won't let it happen again.”

Beau blinked. “Let what happen?”

“You getting hurt, duh.”

A chuckle built up in Beau’s throat before Jester could even finish her sentence. “I always get hurt. It's what happens in fights.”

“Yes, but I'm the cleric!”

“Don't use my words against me now, you can't help everyone at the same time. Fjord’s hand couldn't have stayed a mangled mess, though the swearing was fun. He's a true sailor, alright.”

Jester scratched her cheek. “Yeah, but-”

“Nope. Let's go to sleep.”

They had adopted the habit of sleeping on different sides of the bed, because it made them harder to ambush if they were together and because Jester brightened up every time Beau had accidentally fallen asleep there, so she started doing it on purpose. Beau presented the ambush reason as an excuse every time, though it was highly unlikely for it to happen.

And this is where Beau fucked up. She was in the process of acquiring a first class migraine and she was tired and sore, and her brain seemed to be working slower than her body. So when she languidly twisted, leaned in and kissed Jester on the forehead she didn't even register it.

“Good night,” she drawled.

Jester didn't move until after Beau had settled into her side of the bed. The kiss was not Beau’s usual style of caring. The times Jester had woken up with a blanket over herself or finding more pastries in her bag than she had bought she knew it was Beau, but the outright show of affection was something new.

She grinned and tucked herself in at the other end of the bed. “Night, Beau.”

Beau’s eyes snapped open.

 

* * *

 

 

That… Incident marked the beginning of Beau’s gay panic. And it wasn't your typical gay panic. She had known she was gay since forever and she was overly confident while talking to women, but this was different somehow. It was Jester. And Beau had no idea if she should apologize about the kiss or if she should avoid any mention of it whatsoever.

Her fate, appropriately enough, was decided by Jester herself. And in her defence, she didn't know she was giving Beau an internal crisis, and not many people could tell anyway, because Beau was always tense and moderately grumpy. Moderately may not have been the right word. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

The ‘morning after Beau fucked up’ started with her sneaking away from the room before Jester could wake up and drinking three cups of coffee down at the tavern. Just enough that she'd be hyper aware of everything without the shaking. Her head didn't hurt that much anymore so she probably wouldn't even need healing, but she knew Jester would haggle her about it.

Beau decided she would pretend she hadn't done anything, because quite frankly she was freaking out over nothing.

The first face from her group to greet her was Mollymauk as he descended the stairs with a bored flourish. He spotted her immediately and she had to use all her power not to glare at him just because.

“Unpleasant one,” he said in lieu of a hello. “How's your head? Any hallucinations yet?”

She wished.

“Haha. You're funny. Where are the others?”

She stuck out her foot, trying to trip him but she was a second too slow and he jumped out of the way with a smirk.

“Already went out.”

“What? Where?”

“To visit Pumat. Actually, we could head that way, too. I miss the guy.”

Beau sighed. “Sure. We gotta wait for-”

“Oh, yeah, why isn't Jester with you? Didn't you wake her up?” he asked, busying himself with fixing his coat.

Beau’s shoulders tensed. “No.”

“Well,” Molly said cheerfully, not noticing her discomfort. “She should be here soon enough. Get up, better be ready.”

Beau dragged herself to her feet and almost knocked the chair down as she did.

“Why did you drink so much coffee? Late night?”

She ignored Molly’s jab entirely, crossing her arms.

“Why didn't you go with the others?”

“Someone had to tell you where they went.” He shrugged. “And I felt like sleeping in. What's with you?”

For a horrifying split second she thought about telling him and was ready to bite her tongue off, but that would mess up the situation with the cleric even more.

Hey, I kissed you with no warning last night, can you fix my tongue now?

“I…”

Whatever she was about to say she didn't get the chance, because two arms wrapped around her shoulders from behind.

“Hi, Beau! Molly! Where are we going?”

“To the Invulnerable Vagrant,” Molly said slowly, looking only at Beau.

“Oh, good, we can get more stuff. And more healing potions. Oh, do you want me to-”

Beau caught Jester’s wrist to steady them both lest she topple them over. “Nah, I'm better.”

“Well, let's go then,” said Molly, glancing between the both of them.

As Jester pulled her out of the tavern by the arm, Beau felt another migraine coming and this time it was completely unrelated to the blow on her head.

 

* * *

 

 

From then on Jester got more physically affectionate and Beau lacked the willpower to stop her in any way so it was bound to go downhill. And going downhill for Beau meant Molly noticing. And Molly started noticing everything.

Beau was sitting next to Jester one night in the tavern and Mollymauk was smirking the entire time. Their chairs had practically fused together roughly ten minutes after they sat down and Molly’s face had contorted in that devilish smirk about four minutes before when he had noticed the narrowing distance between them. Now he was openly staring at Beau and she was openly glaring at him in return as Jester chattered animatedly. Beau wasn't sure what it was about because for one, she was too busy trying to set Molly on fire with her gaze (she wished for Caleb’s magic for even a second) and two, the warmth radiating from Jester and her face in general kept Beau from concentrating on speech altogether.

Flirting was one thing, but what she had started feeling was an inconvenience through and through. She cared for Jester a lot, so what if she sometimes wanted to kiss her again except this time on the lips. Beau had perfectly platonic feelings, nothing to see here.

“Beau?”

She blinked. Jester was looking at her.

“Were you listening?”

Molly had put his chin in his hand and he was leaning over the table with an expression of pure glee.

“Uh.” Beau’s throat went dry. “Spaced out, sorry.”

To go with the apology she locked her ankle with Jester’s under the table. Whatever boundaries she had decided to set about physical contact flew out the window in a single impulsive action. Beau was pretty sure she couldn't keep it from becoming a pattern because… It was Jester.

“Is that… Oh my, are you smiling?” asked Molly.

“Go fuck a trumpet, Mollymauk,” she hissed back.

Fjord had raised his eyebrows at her in what she could guess was a mix of pride and surprise that she could even manage a genuine expression of happiness now. The entire table was scrutinizing her and she was two seconds from pulling away to make a statement, but the thought of Jester’s frown kept her put.

“Anyway, as I was saying…”

Beau didn't pay Molly any attention for the rest of the night and instead listened to Jester speak until she fell asleep.

 

* * *

 

 

Walking through the woods at night had become a hell of a lot easier with her goggles but there was the occasional annoying tree branch or root that probably had the power of becoming invisible with how suddenly they appeared in her way. She also blamed the fact that they had picked a cloudy night to wander through the woods and so there wasn't even moonlight. Poor Caleb had to clutch at Molly’s sleeve to move at all.

Beau felt the presence of the other tiefling before she heard her hushed voice so she didn't jump at the sound.

“Hey, Beau.”

“Yeah?”

“Give me your hand.”

Beau did a double take with her comically nerdy goggles. “Uh,” she said confused. “Okay?”

She reached her right hand out, no understanding of what was going on whatsoever but she complied because, well, it was Jester.

Jester clasped Beau’s hand in her own and pulled her ahead. Fjord and Yasha were in front so Molly was undoubtedly carrying Caleb somewhere behind them and he would definitely start an intervention if he saw them at this point. The quiet snickering she heard was pretty much a confirmation.

Jester gently swung their joined hands as they walked and Beau could hear her mumbling under her breath to the Traveler.

 

* * *

 

  
When Jester fell unconscious in the middle of a fight Beau’s head started screaming. All movement after that was a blur of shapes and she only felt her legs when they buckled from the sprint and her knees hit the gravel hard next to Jester’s body. She couldn't hear anything, not even her own breathing, and her hands shook.

She caught sight of Fjord swinging his sword some way off, looking over his shoulder at them after every slash, the fool. Beau shook her head off and reached for Jester’s bag for a healing potion. She'd pay her back or something, she just needed her to be alright first. She slipped her fingers under Jester’s neck to support her head and lifted the potion to her lips.

Beau was only vaguely aware of the fight continuing around her. Caleb’s fireballs blazed in the corner of her vision making everything warmer and illuminating Jester’s pained face. Beau felt like something was choking her with a stick. It was only when Jester’s eyelashes fluttered that Beau heard the sounds surrounding her. The metallic clang of swords and flashes of magic had all been merely a background to her goal.

Jester coughed. Beau shifted closer to be of more support as the tiefling managed to pull herself up enough to lean on her elbows. Jester rubbed her eyes and her unfocused eyes blinked once, twice. She looked up.

“Beau?”

In that moment Beau actually choked on her own spit as relief flooded through her. A million things to say ran through her brain and all of them got rejected. Only the thought of kissing Jester stuck around and Beau had to clench her jaw to the point of hurting to stop herself. She only somewhat succeeded.She leaned down and pressed her forehead to Jester’s, needing to feel that she was alright. Jester’s bangs tickled and when she let out a giggle Beau was sure Caleb had accidentally hit her with a fireball, as she had suspicions would eventually happen.

“You’re okay,” she whispered in Jester’s hair. “Don’t do that again.”

She felt Jester nodding. “I’ll try. Did you use my healing potion? You’re paying me back for that, you know.”

Beau laughed. Honest to the gods laughed in the middle of a bloodbath her friends were making. She pulled away in time for an actual fireball this time to breeze past her head and slam into a tree behind her.

“What the-”

“A little help, perhaps, Beau?” yelled Fjord.

Oh, right. Fighting.

“Sorry, I forgot.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Your girlfriend is a bit upset. Maybe you should talk to her,” said Molly, having pulled Beau aside.

They were back at the inn and while the group was idly chatting in Fjord and Molly’s room, Jester had snuck away for a bit, presumably to talk to the Traveler again. Beau hadn’t followed because she wanted to give her roommate some privacy and because she was too busy destroying Fjord at cards which didn’t happen often with the guy’s luck.

She had only protested a little when Molly grabbed her by the arm, proclaimed her forfeit and dragged her into the hallway. She only processed his words halfway through before she started speaking.

“What, why, did I miss something?” She frowned immediately after. “Not my girlfriend.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” he countered. “Just go, alright, I’ll make something up to tell the others. Oh, how about ‘she suddenly got a case of gay fever, don’t worry Jester will fix her’?”

Beau shoved him. “Not the time, jackass. She seemed upset?”

“From what I could tell. I’m quite perceptive.”

“I know, Mollymauk.”

“You’re in deep, Little Bother.”

“I know, Mollymauk,” she sighed and put her face in her hands. “I’m going now.”

“You better.”

As she rounded the corner to reach her room she heard Molly yell “Why are all the gays leaving the party? Cowards am I right?” and started walking faster as not to return just to suffocate him to death in a choke hold.

When she entered the room Jester was lying on the bed, twirling a pencil and frowning down at her sketchbook. She herself looked like something that should forever be immortalized in a drawing and Beau cursed herself for never having picked up art.

“Hey,” she called.

Jester looked her way and smiled. “How’s the card game going. Is Fjord winning? I bet I could take him.”

“Of course you could,” said Beau. She found a spot on the floor next to the bed and sat down. “You could beat him in anything.”

“I mean, that is true.”

Beau chuckled. “Yeah… Hey, are you alright?”

“Hmm?” Jester didn’t meet her eyes; she only stared at the blank pages of her sketchbook. “Oh, um, no, not really.”

Beau rested her elbow on the bed and twisted so she could look at Jester better. “Want to tell me about it?”

Jester closed the sketchbook. “It’s my mom. She hasn’t sent anything. Not even a letter! And I really need that money…”

Beau swallowed. “You know, I don’t have the best experience with parents. But something just probably got messed up in the mail, like, I did commit mail fraud pretty easily.” Jester’s giggle was probably the best sound Beau had ever heard and if she had to go without hearing it for a few days, she’d most certainly suffer the effects of withdrawal. “And your mom loves you, it’ll be fine.”

Optimism regarding parental figures was the furthest from her thing, but she couldn’t quite grasp the idea of someone not loving Jester, so she’d say she had a pretty accurate point of view.

“Thanks, Beau. You’re not as bad at comforting as Caleb says.”

“You’re wel- Caleb says what now?”

“Oh, yeah, he said that you--”

“You know, let’s forget Caleb, who cares.”

She could almost hear the offended gasp that would leave Molly’s mouth had he been listening. She was quite fond of the dirty hobo wizard herself, but this was really not the time she’d like talking about him.

“Hey, Jester, I was thinking…”

“Ooh, what about?”

“Um,” Beau shifted nervously. “You’re looking for your dad, right? Well, mine sucks a lot so, I thought, at least I could help find yours?”

Jester stared at her for a couple of seconds and her voice had the tiniest bit of strain in it when she spoke up: “Really?”

“Yeah, obviously, I mean…” She sighed and lifted her hand to caress Jester’s cheek, immediately going so red she could be mistaken for a tiefling herself. “I still haven’t paid you back for that potion, and this sounds like a better alternative, right?”

It was a weak excuse. She had used the potion on Jester herself, it wasn’t like she had wasted it. But she didn’t talk about feelings easily, she was cool, punk rock even, whatever that means.

The shine in Jester’s eyes made her heart constrict.

In the next second Jester had tackled her to the floor, wrapping her arms around Beau’s neck and actually giving her the gay fever Molly was talking about. Beau hugged her back, ignoring the uneven floorboard that was digging into her back and the fact that she could hardly breathe. Jester buried her head in the crook of Beau’s neck and giggled again.

Beau was going to die there.

“Hey, Beau?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re really soft.”

She sputtered in lieu of a reply.

 

* * *

 

 

The Mighty Nein dragged themselves along the Pentamarket under the sun, both waiting for the night to come for their next order of business and relaxing after the previous one. Beau had barely slept the night before, because Jester mumbled in her sleep and it was too damn cute and distracting for her to get some shut eye, so she had already bumped into Yasha twice, called Fjord ‘mom’ unironically, and attempted to hold Frumpkin, because he was just so fluffy.

Jester had been bouncing excitedly all over the place for an hour and Beau kept an eye on her to make sure she wouldn’t accidentally knock some poor passerby to the ground.

Molly tapped her shoulder. “Hey, Badger, you mind coming with me for a second?”

“Badger?” she hissed.

He shrugged. “Bother, badger. What’s the difference?”

“I hate you.”

“Yeah, okay, you coming?”

She sighed. “Where?”

“Just over there. I wanna talk to you. And we can pass by that bakery place to get your girlfriend some things. A win-win.”

Beau huffed and rolled her eyes. She had stopped trying to get him to stop calling Jester that. He was relentless. “Fine.”

Molly grinned and turned to the rest of the group that was already a bit ahead of them. “Hey, guys,” All heads snapped to them, Jester tilting hers in a curious manner that almost brought Beau to tears. “We have some stuff to do. Catch up in two hours?”

A bunch of ill-timed nods followed. “Don’t get into any shit,” warned Fjord.

As they turned to walk away, Jester popped up by Beau’s side. Her horns seemed shinier in the sunlight and her bangs were tousled just enough to make her look even cuter. Beau almost jumped away.

“Whoa, you scared me. What is it?”

“Nothing, you just forgot something.”

“Wha--”

When Jester’s lips met hers she almost fell down from the initial surprise, but she regained her wits and pressed into the kiss, her hand going to the back of Jester’s neck with her thumb gliding along her jaw. It was soft, or as soft it could get between someone with a criminal background and an enthusiastic trickster. Jester pulled Beau closer by the cloak and nipped at her bottom lip before pulling away, still grinning.

“See you in two hours!”

With that Jester broke into a run to catch up with the rest of the group while Beau’s feet were glued to the ground. She stared into the distance with a dumbfounded expression long enough for Molly to stop laughing and through fits of coughing and wheezing managed to speak.

“Hey, come on, oh gods, that was… Beau, can you move? This is riveting, I can’t breathe. Give me a moment. You might need several.”

“Mollymauk,” she said slowly. “What just happened?”

“Oh, and you share a room, I’m… absolutely ecstatic.”

“Was that a sleep-deprived hallucination?”

“In public, in front of everyone. I have so much respect for Jester.”

Molly, with his hands on his knees, started cackling again. Beau finally managed to free herself from her braindead state and glared at him. She bit her bottom lip - it was still tingling.

“Do you wanna go now?” she called to Molly, venom dripping from her words.

“Yeah, sure, this was going to be a talk about you two anyway. And Caleb, possibly, though that’s my topic.”

She raised her eyebrows at him. “Huh. Alright then.”

“No, but seriously, should I be worried that you’re roommates?”

Beau punched him in the shoulder.

“Ow, you’re right. I’m not worried, I’m absolutely delighted.”

She wasn’t awake enough for this.

**Author's Note:**

> yell at me on [tumblr](http://vicemyre.tumblr.com/)


End file.
